StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Patch 2.0.4

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty patch 2.0.4 is now live! This major patch brings a number of exciting new systems and improvements to Wings of Liberty while paving the way for the release of our Heart of the Swarm expansion on March 12. Please read the full patch notes below.

GENERAL

All-New Menu Screens

The User Interface layout, art, and graphic style have been completely revamped.

Players are now one click away from any major screen in the User Interface.

Anyone can now create or join a Clan and participate in private clan chat, post news on Clan affairs, and more. Clan tags are pre-pended to character names of all players who join a Clan.

Groups are for players who want to associate casually and in larger numbers. Joining a Group is a way for players to interact with others who share common interests. Players are allowed to join many different groups.

Damaged: Only show for units with less than their maximum life, energy, or shields.

New UI options have been added to aid newer players in various gameplay functions. These can be toggled in the Options > Controls menu:

Display Team Colored Life Bar: Displays unit life bars using team color.

Always Show Worker Status: Displays the current and ideal number of workers above harvestable vespene geysers and town halls.

Enable Simple Command Card: Displays a more simplified view of the command card.

Show Current Order Indicator: Displays an indicator on the terrain when units are issued a movement or attack command.

Select All Larvae: Selecting a single larva will select all larvas attached to the same Hatchery.

Enable Enemy Unit Selection: Allows the player to select units that can’t be controlled such as neutral and enemy units.

The maximum numbers of players that can be in a party has been raised to 16.

All maps that appear in the Custom Games section can now utilize the same Game Info pages (Overview, How to Play, Patch Notes, Reviews) that Arcade games received with Patch 1.5.0.

New Copy Link buttons have been added, which automatically copy certain links tthe clipboard, allowing players to share them with others via clickable links in chat or on the web. When clicked, these links will navigate to the in-game page.

Observer Mode Improvements

Leaderboard

Added two new tabs:

Structures Tab (hotkey T): This panel shows the structures owned by each player.

Upgrades Tab (hotkey G): This panel shows the upgrades researched by each player.

Clicking on an icon in the Units/Structures/Production tabs will now center the camera on that unit. Continued clicks will cycle through all units of that type.

Minimap

Attacked units now flash white for observers.

Nuclear Launch and Nydus Canals now create pings on the minimap for Observers viewing Everyone.

Versus Mode Side Toggle (Hotkey CTRL-X)

Added a hotkey to flip sides that player names appear in the Observer UI when watching a Versus Mode 1v1 game.

Customizable Observer UI

Brand new SC2Interface mod support has been added, which enables casters and observers to watch games of StarCraft II using a completely custom user interface. This gives production crews a new set of powerful tools to create even more epic broadcast experiences.

For more information on how to use this feature, please see this thread in our User Interface forums.

Players who have blocked communication with others are now also prohibited from initiating chat with those they have blocked.

EDITOR

General

A new preload Info dialog has been added for defining game data, asset files, and banks to be preloaded in-game. This is accessible from the Map/Mod menus in all modules.

Added color preferences for text preview display.

The Arcade Info dialog has been renamed tBattle.net Info. This info is now available for non-arcade maps as well.

New SC2Interface files:

Mods can now optionally be saved as SC2Interface files as long as they don’t have any data which affects gameplay.

Mod gameplay/interface status can be checked using the Mod > Mod Status window.

New Export Locales and Import Locales commands have been added. These are available under the Map/Mod > Locales sub-menu. These can be used to export and import localized text to and from text files.

The Dependency dialog now includes a display of the full dependency chain resulting from the requested dependencies. Dependency reference checking and validation now accounts for the full chain properly in all cases.

The Dependency dialog now issues a warning when Multi mods are used in conjunction with Story mods. These are designed to be mutually exclusive and could cause a variety of problems in game when combined.

Added toolbar button size preference.

AI Module

A new Attack Wave Graphs window is now available from the Data menu, for visualizing attack wave cost/supplies vs. time.

Cutscene Module

Added Cutscene Frames. Cutscene frames are dialog items you can play a cutscene in.

New Properties have been added:

Animation Element:

Right-Aligned: Animations can now specify that they always end at the end of the block.

Weight: The blend value for this animation block.

Director Node:

Reverb: The reverb to set while playing back the cutscene.

Auto Destroy on End: When disabled, the cutscene will not be destroyed when it ends, but instead it will pause on the final frame.

Sound Node:

Non-Seeking: If enabled, causes the sound to not change its current time when the current time jumps.

Speaker Mix: You can now set and animate the speaker mix values.

Fade Node

Priority: Allows you to specify the priority level of a fade when multiple scenes attempt to control fade.

Terrain is now automatically imported when starting the Cutscene Module.

Active Light Nodes will now search for a light suffixed with "_Low" if graphics options are set to Medium or Low.

New icons added for all node types!

Added a new "Time Follows Edits" mode under the edit menu that causes the timeline cursor to always follow the edited block.

Sound Improvements:

Added Sound Group Nodes: These folder-like nodes allow you to add sound nodes to them then set properties for all sounds inside the group at once.

Volume and pitch properties are now treated as multipliers instead of absolute values.

Setting sound index t-1 now causes it to pick a new variation each time it plays.

Sounds now properly fade out after their blocks end.

Sounds can now specify Active Shots.

Value changes that represent less than 0.1% of a difference no longer create new keys in auto key mode.

You can now add multiple cutscene filters when playing back a cutscene.

Cutscenes are now played back in Replays.

Data Module

Added the Data Navigator Window. This new window visualizes how objects are linked to one another.

Each tab in the Data Module now remembers its own view mode.

Model Preview Panes now animate with the model's default animation, making effects easier to identify.